Friday, June 29, 2018

F³ WIP The Missing Link

Lindsey kept going on about various
officials, bringing up events that I wasn’t even aware of—I tended to stick to
my own concerns. She had zoning laws, chamber of commerce, non-profit
organizations, and more all pointing to something conspiratorial about the
upper echelons in the city. She brought up warehouses in Dante and Shoreward as
possible locations for the incoming drugs, which matched up with what I had
already been thinking. My mind swam as she kept going, her own logic compelling
her to fill in all the gaps even though I thought she was reaching with a good
portion of it, until—

“Stop,” I said, leaning forward. “Go
back to that last picture. No, the one before that.” She went back to the
picture, bringing up the picture of Councilwoman Hoshi Gillespie. The picture
was taken on the steps of City Hall. I zoomed the picture in, filling the
entire screen with it.

“What? That’s just a picture of the
councilwoman after the zoning vote. Got it straight from our cameraman at the
paper.”

I walked up to the TV, getting as
close as I could. Around the councilwoman were reporters and a few other city
officials, but behind her, about three steps behind, was a dark-haired woman on
her phone holding an umbrella.

“Who is that?”

She looked familiar. The hair was
different, and the dress was different, but I could swear I recognized the
face. The umbrella, especially, drew my attention. It looked like an ordinary
umbrella, and Belport’s weather made them commonplace. Even in the picture
there were a dozen people with umbrellas. None were deployed, but close at hand
for the inevitable drizzle.

“I can look up the photo credit.
She’s an assistant to the councilwoman, I think. You know her?”

I squinted, trying to piece it
together.

The hair. It should be down, not
tied up close to her head. That’s a business woman’s ‘do. Her hair should be
down, kind of loose, but not in the way of her face. And the dress, that’s very
legal, corporate. It’s not right.

“Wednesday Adams,” I muttered.

“Hardly. She’s pretty corporate.
Young to be working so high up, but lots of students get internships, now. Name
is Sharon Winters. I can search out more about her. What are you thinking?”

I looked again at her face, I had a
memory of the wind whipping dark hair around, of rain starting to come down and
opening the umbrella to be whisked away—

“Oh, shit!
It’s Mary Poppins!”

“Who?”

She got
away in the park, her umbrella carried her away after Angie tried to skewer her
with lightning. We couldn’t find her because she had an extreme corporate
makeover.